Over the 23rd and 24th April, all of our students participated in an inspiring drama project. The students, aged 4 to 14 and their teachers worked with drama practitioners Abie Walton and Diana Christie from the UK to produce a fantastic performance of fairy tales.
Abie and Diana taught our students how to warm up their voices and bodies and use facial and body movements to enhance their acting skills. They learned how to use the space effectively and to create different levels during the performance. Every student showed great resilience in learning and practising their lines and they cooperated brilliantly in groups to prepare and perform each tale.
The final performance was to a ‘packed house’ and our audience of staff and parents loved each tale.
Huge congratulations to Reception, Years 1 and 2 for ‘The Elves and the Shoemaker’, to Years 3 and 4 for ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, to Years 5 and 6 for ‘Cinderella’, to Year 7 for ‘Hansel and Gretel’, Year 8 for ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarves’ and to Year 9 for ‘Rapunzel’.
Here are some comments from the students about the day, written to the two animators, Abie and Diana - it was hard to choose which ones to put here as they were all so positive.
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When they told us what we were going to do I thought that was going to be a disaster and that it wouldn’t work. However, after the two afternoons with Diana and the real performance I was so surprised because it worked and it was really good. I enjoyed rehearsing and performing. I had a really good time with you. It was challenging but funny. Thank you so much for coming here and making us have a really good time. I really liked it. I enjoyed this activity a lot. It was an incredible experience. Once again, thank you: the show was amazing.’
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‘I really enjoyed the Drama days, Thank you so much for coming to our school. On the first day I thought that it was going to be difficult and hard to remember our speeches, but we did it. I never thought we would make it. I was really happy to see what we did. You spent so much good time with us. It was really hard for me and challenging for me because I am Chinese and not very confident at speaking English, but you helped me to do it! Thank you very much for preparing this Drama for us. I hope we can make another Drama together in the future.’
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‘Thank you very much for coming to Switzerland. I really enjoyed what we did in the drama and it was a very good experience. I never thought that we could make a play in 2 days but we did it so I was really happy and proud of our school. It was really hard for me to speak in front of people and my English is not really good so it was difficult for me, but I tried my best so I’m very happy with that. I hope we can do more plays in the future. It was really fun when we were all together and we laughed and had some fun. It was really fantastic and I think we couldn’t have made it without you. Thank you so much. I hope I can see you again.’
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‘Thank you for the amazing experience that you brought to La Garenne. The challenge you set was difficult, fun and I think it has helped us all improve on a lot of very important skills that we will use throughout our lives. I am grateful for all the hard work you guys put into making such an amazing play for us to perform. I am sure it took you several days to come up with such a brilliant idea. Your play had a perfect balance between childish for the younger kids and more mature for the older students which was one of the things I was most concerned about. Something else that I was concerned about, that you absolutely nailed, was the amount of time we had to be ready for the play. We only had 5 hours with you in total to learn all the movements and lines and you made it work out perfectly. All in all I think this was a fantastic performance and we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you so much for all of your fantastic work we really appreciate it.’
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‘Thanks a lot for coming and teaching us a play in only two days. I learned so much and I can’t tell you how much I appreciated you coming to help us. I am in awe because of how well the play went with so little time. Thanks again’.
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‘A GIGANTIC THANK YOU!!!!!!! I thought that I would fail really badly but you guys had so much faith and patience for us and I really thank you for that. It was a really good time for me and I really enjoyed it’.
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‘I really appreciate you for spending a lot of time with us and helping us to complete the drama. Honestly, I was really scared for the drama, because I hate acting and it’s really not my thing, and I just wanted to be something in the background like a tree or something. But it turned out awesome and thank you for being patient when we were completely confused on the first day!!! I actually never expected that it would turn out that good!! (⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎) ’
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‘Thank you for coming to La Garenne school and spending 2 whole days teaching and doing drama with us. It was really fun and the end result was very impressive and I enjoyed it a lot. I never knew that in 2 days we would be able to actually put the performance together but we did, and it was very good. Again, thank you for an amazing experience!’
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‘Thank you for making time for us and all the madness and stress of all of the students and thank you helping us make a wonderful play for the parents.
And I would like to say that I am AMAZED by how much effort you made to make the BEST play in just 2 DAYS WOWW!!!
I really appreciate how much you really helped us do our best for the play. I loved the fact that you were patient with us and it was really fun to be with you guys.
( I loved the warm up we did before we went to act)’
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‘Thank you so much for everything you guys have done for us for the past two days. It was a phenomenal experience and we had so much fun learning and acting. I truly appreciate your efforts and everything you did to teach us this wonderful play. It was amazing to be with such freelance professionals. Once again thank you for everything you have done for us’
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‘It was really amazing acting with the whole school. I want to thank the teachers who showed us what to do. The play turned out to be really good. Thank you to all our class teachers for being there to guide us and to help us to practise’.
